Madeleines and the Waldstein

Music ties itself to moments in our lives. Each once beloved song carries with it specific memories and emotions of the time when listened to most. Pop music exploits this and, by its ephemeral nature, it creates a collective link to a time. This summer will, for many, be remembered through Adele’s Rolling in the Deep, or Lady Gaga’s Edge of Glory and with those melodies comes a twinge of nostalgia, a memory of heartbreak or a flicker of a smile. For some songs there is only a brief, “Oh yeah, I remember when I listened to this song,” but for others, the connection is a time portal; immediately upon hearing it, consciousness drifts back to a moment in our history, and lost time becomes found again.

The Waldstein sonata by Beethoven has this effect on me more than any other song. It was the first piece of classical music that I ever loved. Probably not the first, but during one of my early listens, the wave of catharsis brought on by the piece was overwhelming. The first movement is frantic and scattered and the brief second movement acts as a moment to catch our breath before launching into the amazing third movement. The third movement is always reaching for the highest high. It’s chasing after something, though it’s never sure what it’s looking for. It, like much of Beethoven, is relentless striving. What always caught me about this piece is that it doesn’t end in success. I always heard it as reaching, but the end is anti climatic. As the piece races towards the end it builds and builds, but can’t provide a satisfying conclusion and at the end of every listen, I always wanted to hear it again and again and again hoping this time that I would hear the conclusion I wanted but couldn’t find.

I was at St. John’s at the time and the search for meaning was paramount. There’s a sort of desperation in most St. John’s students or probably anyone who spends all their time reading philosophy. I loved this piece because it felt as though Beethoven’s as well as my search was marked more for failure than for success. While searching, and like the Waldstein sometimes the thing seems so close, but it is always elusive, tantalizing and always out of reach. It’s tragic, but with the tragedy comes catharsis and the Waldstein came to represent the catharsis of the search. And then, the meaning in the search for meaning sufficed.

It’s been years since St. John’s and the search is of a different kind. It’s become more pragmatic and less frantic. I think more about what I want my life to look like in 2 years, 5 years, 10 years or 50 years and wonder how I can get there then what it all Means. My mind is more set in its ways and revolutions of consciousness happen passively and over long stretches of time rather than zig zagging with every new book. The idea of finding “meaning” is an absurdity to me, until those wonderful, familiar notes come racing and dancing upwards over the speakers, then i'm sitting in my dorm again and laying on my bed. Finding meaning is all that matters. As I listen to the piece crescendo as it hits its highest notes only to retreat back down for to end, I feel unsatisfied and listen to it again.